WTF Is Boxed News? 📦

I’m not a YouTuber. I’m not a podcaster. But I love tech, and it excites me, and my tool of choice has always been digital publishing, especially in newsletter form.

And lately I’ve started to feel there’s a gap in the market for folks who find the sudden glut of mini PCs to be actually an exciting development in computing. Yes, there are outlets that cover portions of this market—Lilputing and ServeTheHome are two pretty good ones, and I love what Ethan Sholly does with Self Host Weekly. Plus, there are tons of YouTubers who can tell you the ins and outs of the Raspberry Pi.

But I want to focus on a part of the market that has traditionally gotten overlooked because it’s kind of boring: The mini PC sector. You can only buff a box destined to live under a shelf so much. You may not even look at it after you max out its RAM. But it’s still secretly essential to your life. I got my first one about five years ago, and I now have a few, some of which support my business, others of which are perfect for gaming. It’s a space I know well; I even once interviewed one of the guys responsible for creating the Intel NUC.

My style of coverage is very much focused on highlighting interesting trends and digging into unusual corners in hopes that connecting the dots leads to an interesting place. I’m less focused on the benchmarks of it all, and more interested in what makes sense for users. I might talk about common phenomena of self-hosters, like yak-shaving.

I’m also a bit of a maverick when it comes to working on the frontiers of publishing, starting with my original site ShortFormBlog. And this time is no exception. This newsletter and website is running on a custom CMS built on top of Astro. I heard what the folks at Cloudflare were doing with EmDash and I thought it was fascinating, but then I thought to myself, why not just build my own thing? So, this may be the first CMS that is intended from the ground up to both write emails and send them. What’s the benefit for you, the reader? It means that I can largely avoid the added costs that come with self-publishing.

And since it’s going to come up: Yes, we’re going to cover some emerging trends in AI, as it’s kind of an important part of why mini PCs are suddenly all the rage these days. But while we may ask DeepSeek or Claude for some help in navigating the technical waters that come with solo digital publishing, our writing is ours, and we’re hand-curating to the best of our ability. Our stance on AI follows what I call the Bionic Arm theory: It is best reserved for situations in which it helps you reach beyond your limitations.

The nice thing about mini PCs is that you have a choice over how much you have to care about the world of SaaS, AI, and everything else. It can replace a number of big subscription bills, or it can be the vessel through which you give Steam your paycheck because you gave up on Xbox years ago.

My goal with Boxed News is that I’m going to focus on consistency by working in a strict format. Anyone who has read Tedium over the last couple of years knows that I’ve become a bit more irregular with that format. This is another project that is an offshoot of some of my work there, but it’s also designed to specifically hit a niche I particularly like.

How’s my driving? You know where to find me. I just request that if you’re going to throw old cables at me as you complain, that you make sure you set aside the eSATA cables. You never know when you’re going to need it.

— Ernie @ Boxed News

Site F.A.Q.:

Which operating systems will you cover?

Our emphasis is going to be on Linux, but we’re going to also dabble in MacOS and Windows when it makes sense. While I faded out of the Apple ecosystem a few years ago, I’m not going to lie about the role Apple played in both establishing and reviving this market. So yeah, I’ll probably have to add a Mac Mini to the lineup at some point.

Will you do product reviews?

When it makes sense, yes, but they will be in the vein of Tedium’s review strategy, in which functionality is emphasized. While some products may be supplied, we also plan on doing the occasional product review of something we bought with our own money. Parties interested in working with us can reach Ernie at his email address.

Is this only going to be about mini PCs?

Odds are that it will drift over time, just as lots of other newsletters do. But that said, I do have some thoughts on related areas that I think are relevant that aren’t specifically mini PCs, such as controllers.

Are you going to paywall this thing?

At some point, it’s possible; while Tedium will never be paywalled, the emphasis with Boxed News is on providing niche coverage, and if it makes sense to paywall certain things, then we might at some point. One area we may consider, if it takes off, is the RSS feed. Our pals at 404 Media ended up putting their full-text RSS feed behind a paywall a few years back, and it’s worked out really well for them.

But there will always be a free variant of this newsletter, whatever happens.

Will you cover my vibe-coded app?

Before you send it along, consider how many folks already send these our way. I wrote about it recently. Consider before you send it: Does this feel like you, or something a machine built?

So, what happens to Tedium?

It continues on, with perhaps a little less self-hosting content awkwardly shoe-horned into the mix of posts about Care Bears and the design of salsa jars. I want to put more of a focus on my tech history heritage over there, so I’m open to ideas on that front.